Makaila:  Why did you start being a funeral director?

Marc:  I have always like helping people.  The best part of being a funeral director is to be able to help people when they need it most.

Makaila:  Who inspired you to be a funeral director?

Marc:  Uncle Bert Hills, because that’s the first funeral that I remember, my sister Bev because I wanted to change things, Uncle Clayton because it was at his funeral that I decided then to pursue my career and Pearl Graves because she left me the money that put me through school.

Makaila:  At the end of the day, are you proud of yourself?  And why?

Marc:  Yes, I am.  I give it my all.  I try to do everything that I can to make the time that a family is here at the funeral home easier for them.

Makaila:  If you weren’t a Funeral Director, what would you be?

Marc:  I enjoyed being a Developmental Service Worker.  I also thought about being a Nurse.

Makaila:  If there’s one life lesson you’ve learned while you were a Funeral Director, what is it? 

Marc:  That everyone makes a contribution to the world, regardless of their age or anything else about them. 

Makaila:  If someone famous were to visit the funeral home, who would you hope it would be?

Marc:  Opie Taylor (she didn’t get that one!)

Makaila:  Is it hard to work in a business where people are crying and you have to try not to cry because you want to look professional?

Marc:  I’ve cried with the best of them.  You can’t have feelings and not cry.

And then I turned the table and asked her a question…

Marc:  Do your friends ask you about the funeral home?

Makaila:  They ask me why you do that.

Marc:  What do you tell them?

Makaila:  You should do what you love and I guess he loves being a Funeral Director!

The beginning of school is bittersweet for me.  Right now we have five children at home who will attend five different schools…that has the potential for five different meet the teacher nights, five different parent teacher interview nights and five different Christmas concerts.  When it comes to two of the kids schools competing against each other in sports, I’ll just have to cheer when everybody gets ahead…it will make people wonder who the crazy person is in the back! 

I remember the days of getting ready for school.  Each year we got a new lunch pail which was a square metal box with some kind of design on it, new binders,paper and pens; usually bic pens because they were only nineteen cents each.  We also got one new outfit to wear on the first day of school.  Each year I promised myself to keep my notes more organized than the last year and each year I did just that…for about a month.  There seems to be so much more for kids to learn now.  Makaila came home last year with grade six math that I’m sure I took in high school.  I don’t know how kids are keeping up.  I guess with all of the new knowledge comes new ways of learning and somehow it all works.

So back to school, back to making lunches, back to trying to make lunches more exciting and back to making more lunches…I think that I’m the Grinch of making lunches but I’ll just have to deal with it!

For everyone, the first stage of grief is shock and disbelief which is what helps us get through those initial days and which is why the loss seems to hurt more as time goes on.  One day you will go to do one of those “friend things” and it will hit you that Jane is really not there.  And you’ll be sad and you’ll be angry and maybe for awhile you may not feel like doing “friend things” because it hurts too much or because you feel guilty for having fun without her.  Maybe without really understanding what is going on you will go to a place where it doesn’t hurt so much and throw yourself into doing things to an extreme like working or shopping or baking.  And then, as Oprah says, you’ll have an “aha” moment when you realize what’s going on and why you’re doing the things you’re doing and you can begin to heal.

In one of my favourite songs by Michael W Smith called “Friends Are Friends Forever” he sings about losing friends and he sings “We’ll keep you close as always; it won’t even seem you’re gone.  ‘Cause our hearts in big and small ways will keep the love that keeps us strong.  Though it’s hard to let you go in the Father’s hands we know that a lifetime’s not too long to live as friends”.